Help us raise £50,000 to give Mia a chance of walking, begs mother

 
Family affair: five-year-old Mia with her mother, Jayde, and grandmother Tessa
10 April 2012

A mother today made an emotional plea to Londoners to help her five-year-old daughter walk unaided for the first time.

Jayde Michael, 24, was told that her daughter Mia - who was born at 27 weeks weighing less than 2lb - had just three weeks to live and would remain in a "vegetable" state after both her lungs collapsed when she was five days old.

But Mia has defied her bleak prognosis. Despite having cerebral palsy, she has learned to sit, stand with a walking frame and learn sign language.

Her mother is now trying to raise £50,000 to take her daughter to Missouri for an operation that might enable Mia to walk on her own. So far, Miss Michael and her mother, Tessa Bastien, 46, have raised £13,000 towards the campaign, Mia's Missouri Mission.

The singer from Kilburn said that now Mia is older, she gets frustrated that she cannot run around with other children. "When she goes to the park she wants to run around but she can't and she knows she's a bit different. It would just mean the world to me to see her make steps, I know she is the kind of child who would be running all over the place."

The operation involves opening the vertebrae to reveal the spinal cord. Electrical stimulation is then used to identify the affected nerves so that they can be cut out.

To donate, visit JustGiving.com/Mias-Missouri-Mission or text MIAS50 £(amount) to 70070.

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